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Arts and Sciences

The Friends of the Forms is a student philosophy club that began in 1975. Once a year the club hosts a special "Philosopher-in-Residence" program. We invite a philosopher of national reputation to come for three to four days, give two lectures, and meet informally with students and faculty. Here is a list of of the philosophers who've participated in this program.

YearPhilosopher in ResidenceTitle of Talk(s)
2025Luvell AndersonTBD
2024John SymonsLoneliness and Love in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
2023Larry ShapiroHow Philosophers Think About Thinking
2022Eleanor StumpSuffering and Flourishing
2021Esme MurdockOntologies of Eco-Kin: Indigenous World Sense/ing
2019Robert GressisThe Placeholder View of Disagreement

What Should Professors Think about Bad Students? And What Should Students Think about Bad Professors?
2018Krma Lekshe TsomoLiving and Dying in Buddhist Cultures
2017Jonathan DancyUnderstanding Tolerance
2016Paul SakaProvidence and Probability: God, Chance and Ultimate Meaning
2015Sherri IrvinIcons of False Hope? The Role of Images in Thinking about Racial Justice

Norms and Ontology
2014Theodore KisielHeidegger's Meditations on the Meaning of Modern Technology

How to Philosophize on Our Own Human Situation of Being According to Martin Heidegger
2013Jim YatesThe Hitchcock Gaze: Women, Men and the Panoptic Lens

The Hitchcock Style: Mise-en-Scene, Montage and the Subversion of the Audience
2012Jane AckermanImagining Native Americans
2011Jack WeinsteinDefending Progressive History: Adam Smith Responds to Michel Foucault

Why Adam Smith? Why Now? Some thoughts on the renewal of interest in the father of capitalism
2010Steven SchroederOn Not Founding Rome: The Virtue of Hesitation

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Laozi: Language and Silence
2009Norman FinkelsteinCivility and Academic Freedom

The Israel-Palestine Conflict: What we can learn from Ghandi
2007Christopher SmeenkFine Tuning Problems and Early Universe Cosmology

From Space and Time to Spacetime
2006Linda ZagzebskiFate and Fatalism

Self Trust and the Diversity of Religions
2005Brian OrendJustice After War: Afghanistan and Iraq

Supreme Emergencies & Ethics: From World War II to the Terror
2004Michael TyeCan I Survive My Own Bodily Death? Philosophical Questions About Personal Identity

The Problem of Common Sense
2003Stanley HauerwasLectures on Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2002Gary ComstockGenetic Engineering
2001Herman SaatkampSantayana: Naturalism & Genetics
2000Fred DallmayrGlobalization: Curse or Promise

Homelessness/Homecoming: Heidegger on the Road
1999Larry HickmanHardhats and Habermas: The Technophobic Residue in Communicative

Intelligence as a Public Project: John Dewey's Three-Point Program Ac on
1998Nicholas CapaldiThe Liberal Paradigm in Affirmative Action

Why is Philosophy Being Marginalized in the Academic World?
1997George GrahamPsychopathology and the Mystery of Consciousness

Psychopathology, Freedom and the Experience of Externality
1996Douglas KellnerCultural Studies and Media Culture

Modern vs. Post-Modern Theory: Some Contemporary Debates
1995Lucius OutlawAfricana Philosophy

On Race and Philosophy
1994Sandra HardingIs Science Multicultural? Challenges, Resources, Opportunities

Strong Objectivity: Contributions from Feminism
1993Bruce WilshireArt and Truth

The Moral Collapse of the University
1992Herbert DreyfusFrom Socrates to Expert Computer Systems: The Limits of Calculative Rationality

What is Moral Maturity? The Carol Gilligan-Jurgen Habermas Debate
1991Konstantin KolendaMiraculous Life

Pragmatism, Old and New
1990Peter FrenchResponsibility, Retribution, and 'Tit-for-Tat'

The Dangerous Hero
1989John McDermottHi-Tech and a Philosophy of Medicine

Pragmatic Ethics: An Alternative
1988Clark GlymourPhilosophy of Science
1987Carl WellmanProlonging Life/Delaying the Inevitable

Utility and Rights
1986Norman KretzmannPower, Evil, Goodness and Love in Medieval Explanations of Creation

William Ockham and the Creation of the Beginningless World
1985Erich HellerKafka’s Dog Fable

Nietzsche's Prophecy
1984Joel FeinbergLegal Philosophy

Moral & Legal Obligations of the Good Samaritan
1983Ted CohenJokes: A Philosophical Stroll and The Standard of Artistic Taste
1982Robert SolomonLove: A Philosophical Perspective

The Structure of Emotion
1981Hazel BarnesFreedom and Psychology and Sartre and Flaubert
1980Kenneth SayreComputers, and the Mind/Body Problem

Morality, Values and Private Industry
1979Marjorie GreneEvolution and Scientific Progress

Idea and Judgment in the Third Meditation of Descartes
1978Richard De GeorgeAnarchism and Authority

Marxism and the Morality of Capitalism
1977Maurice WilesFaith, Doubt, & the University Theologian
1976Richard TaylorIf God is Dead, Is Nothing Forbidden?

Reasons and Causes
1975Charles HartshorneMetaphysics and the Two Basic Analogies

Ways of Thinking About God